Michael Simmons is The Spectator's economics editor
Scotland’s first census results have finally been released: just 444 days after England managed to publish theirs. The once-a-decade count of the population was disastrous at worst and botched at best. As the first deadline for returning the census loomed last April, some 700,000 households – a quarter of the country – were threatened with
Scotland continues to suffer drug deaths at levels unseen anywhere else in the UK or Europe. Three Scots die as a result of drugs every single day. That is nearly three times worse than any other country for which records exist. This scandalous figure has just been updated, and shows that, although the number of
33 min listen
This week: The cover of The Spectator magazine looks at whether after years of Covid-based disruption, rising cost and lecturer strikes, university students are getting what they paid for. The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons writes a sidebar in which he rails against some of the changes that are happening to university freshers’ week and joins the podcast alongside
I don’t remember much of freshers’ week at Edinburgh. Friends have helped to fill in the blanks. I vaguely recall a police officer handing out vodka shots to show how easy it was to fail a breathalyser test. A famous DJ had his set in the union cut short because he played the song ‘Blurred
5 min listen
Today we had the – seemingly – good news that the headline rate of inflation for July has come down to 6.8%. This is in line with Bank of England targets which suggest that Rishi could be set to meet his pledge to halve inflation. Is this cause for celebration in Number 10? Or should we
Public sector pay growth has jumped 9.6 per cent, the fastest rate since current records began 22 years ago. Private sector wage growth, meanwhile, is slightly more modest at 7.9 per cent. The NHS bonus – a one-off payment of between £1,650 and £3,500 given in June – helped lift overall wages up by 8.2
Yet another of Rishi Sunak’s five targets looks to have slipped out of reach. Waiting lists for NHS treatment in England have climbed to another record high and now stand just shy of 7.6 million. There was a slight improvement for the longest waits: those waiting more than a year dropped slightly but still stand
14 min listen
Rishi Sunak is likely to hit his target of halving inflation by the end of the year, according to the latest Bank of England forecasts. But is that enough to make people feel better off, and will the Tories reap any political benefits for doing it? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Simmons.
The Tories have avoided total wipeout in last night’s triple by-election. Rishi Sunak dodged the embarrassment of becoming the first Prime Minister in 50 years to lose three by-elections in a single day. While the Lib Dems won Somerton and Frome and Labour secured victory in Selby and Ainsty, the Conservative candidate in Uxbridge, Steve Tuckwell,
Threadneedle Street will have all the economic limelight this week as the Bank of England sets interest rates tomorrow. With this morning’s grim inflation update, a rate rise looks all but certain. But this morning, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released an update on Rishi Sunak’s third pledge: to get debt falling. The figures
Wages are slowly closing the gap with inflation, up 7.2 per cent in the year to April versus inflation of 8.7 per cent. It adds up to a real-terms decrease. It’s the 18th real-terms fall in a row – though the fastest nominal rise on record outside the pandemic. The new minimum wage (up nearly
Is Rishi Sunak stopping the boats? He’d certainly like us to think so. He spent much of yesterday in Dover parading the news revealed on The Spectator data hub last week that small boats crossing the Channel were down a fifth compared with the same time last year. By the end of May, the Ministry of Defence
One of the UK’s biggest economic problems is having so many people out of work – and the slowest return to pre-pandemic workforce levels in Europe. This is costly and slows growth, as taxpayers foot the bill for benefits while employers struggle to fill vacancies. Today’s figures show that it is getting better – but
Alex Salmond was one of the first to fall victim to Twitter’s blue tick cull. An account with the same name as his began sending out disparaging tweets about his sub-optimal bowel movements. The account was tweeting shortly after Elon Musk removed 400,000 ‘legacy verified’ blue ticks, little badges that sit next to a user’s
10 min listen
The arrest of the SNP’s treasurer Colin Beattie in relation to the probe into the party’s finances has overshadowed Humza Yousaf’s relaunch speech scheduled for today. Beattie has been taken into custody two weeks after Peter Murrell, the SNP’s chief executive, was questioned by police regarding loans made in June 2021. Can Yousaf distance himself
The UK’s labour market is cooling down, slowly. Although unemployment rose from 3.7 per cent to 3.8 per cent, figures published by the Office for National Statistics this morning show that job vacancies have fallen for the ninth consecutive period. They’re now down 47,000 but still stand at over a million. The number of people
10 min listen
Today Keir Starmer has doubled down on Labour Party adverts attacking the Conservative’s record on crime, and which seemingly accuse Rishi Sunak of not caring about child sex abuse. But is everyone in the party willing to play hardball? Or have the adverts highlighted divisions between senior Labour MPs? Also on the podcast, after Peter
11 min listen
Humza Yousaf has been announced as the new leader of the SNP after a narrow victory over second placed Kate Forbes. What will this mean for the cause of Scottish independence? Katy Balls speaks to Michael Simmons, Stephen Daisley and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Humza Yousaf is the new leader of the SNP and in the coming days will be sworn in at the Court of Session in Edinburgh as the county’s sixth first minister. He inherits a bickering party and almost a decade of electoral stalemate over independence. It is far from clear what legacy his predecessor leaves in her
As Nicola Sturgeon prepares to exit stage right, she’s been reeling off her greatest hits. Things she thinks she’s done to leave her mark on Scotland. She was helped this week by a study published in the Lancet. It claimed that her minimum unit pricing policy (where alcohol must be sold for at least 50p per unit)
